SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Pray with me.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for the privilege that we have to be in your house.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the freedom that we have to enjoy communion with you.
SPEAKER_01: And God, what we invite you to do today is to speak.
SPEAKER_01: And we pray, Lord, that we don't just hear, but that we listen.
SPEAKER_01: The difference is the words bouncing around versus absorbing.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, we pray for absorption.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for your Holy Spirit to move and be among us today.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your presence.
SPEAKER_01: And it's in your name that we pray these things, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Is Wade Burgess, and my apologies up front if you were expecting a polished preacher this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Our ushers are ready to give out refund, should you need them at the end of the of the service.
SPEAKER_01: Just a couple of uh things, though.
SPEAKER_01: What you are getting today is someone who loves Jesus, who enjoys the Bible immensely, and who has been a longtime member of Graham Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: And it's my real privilege to be in front of you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Um just a couple of housekeeping notes.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the first one is when I was given advice about preparation this morning, I was told there's no such thing as a short, bad sermon.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to test that theory today and see what you think of that.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing, if you receive Neil's email to the church yesterday, he promised a short sermon, so I promise you we will not make a liar out of him.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'll we'll make sure of that uh as well.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we've been in a sermon series over the last couple of months, I guess, entitled Life Song.
SPEAKER_01: And the idea behind this is that our hearts sing a particular song, our lives sing a particular song based on our understanding and knowledge of God in relationship to certain circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: We've actually talked about how to be sad to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about how to celebrate, we've talked about uh being in God's midst.
SPEAKER_01: We've even talked about how to be still on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: And so today I want us to continue that idea of life song, how do our hearts sing, maybe uh, if you will, kind of increase the playlist of your life song.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to do that by giving you three characteristics of God.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm calling uh aspects of his occupation.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll explain that in in just a bit.
SPEAKER_01: I hope it'll make sense to you.
SPEAKER_01: But I find it interesting that Jesus came from a carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: His work heritage, his apprenticeship was of carpentry.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, we really don't hear much about that.
SPEAKER_01: We don't read a whole lot about that.
SPEAKER_01: We don't see coffee tables or bookshelves that he made.
SPEAKER_01: Um really, all we know is that his father was a carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if Jesus has been a shepherd in that time, in that day, people would have certainly uh understood that analogy.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls him a great shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: He takes care of the flock, so that would have made sense.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus had been a fisherman, that would have made perfect sense.
SPEAKER_01: He grew up near the sea, he actually fed with fish, some of his disciples were fishermen.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'll make you fishers of men, so that analogy would not have been lost on his audience then or now.
SPEAKER_01: But instead, we we see that he was a carpenter, and what I want to try to impress upon you today is that this is just, I think, one in a long line of subtleties that the Bible gives us.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's kind of God's way of winking at us as if to say there's small, sometimes seemingly minute details that if you're willing to dig a little deeper, there's some real treasure here.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what God does when he just says, yep, Jesus was a carpenter and then moves on.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna unpack uh three aspects of that.
SPEAKER_01: And the way we're going to do it is I'm gonna take you on a really quick tour of about three places in the Bible that we're going to look at that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, speaking of tours, uh, I love history, I love taking tours and all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Uh too many times I insert myself as the tour guide.
SPEAKER_01: About, I don't know, four or five years ago, my wife Amy and I are in Washington, D.C., and I love D.C.
SPEAKER_01: I've been going there a long time.
SPEAKER_01: My parents took me first when I was, I think it was maybe elementary or junior high, been a half a dozen times or so.
SPEAKER_01: I love the history and all the nuances that are there, the the just all the museums, all of that stuff I enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: So Amy and I are there.
SPEAKER_01: We're actually staying in the Jefferson Hotel, a hotel that has certain significance.
SPEAKER_01: And uh we had some time to kill one evening, and we said, hey, why don't we go on a night tour?
SPEAKER_01: That that sounds good.
SPEAKER_01: I've not seen DC at night.
SPEAKER_01: I hear this is the way to go.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, it is awesome to see at night.
SPEAKER_01: So uh they said, okay, for those that are on the night tour, you're gonna get in a bus, and you're gonna, the bus is gonna take you to the start of the night tour.
SPEAKER_01: So we get on the bus, and I don't know, there's you know, 10, 15, 20 people on the bus with us.
SPEAKER_01: And uh as we're pulling out, I lean over and I go, Amy, he's not telling us about that.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, we're not even on the tour yet.
SPEAKER_01: What do you expect?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, but he ought to be telling.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're missing it.
SPEAKER_01: These people need to know about all this.
SPEAKER_01: So we go to the night tour and we go through the tour, and uh the tour completes, and we get back on the bus taking us back to our hotel, and I couldn't resist.
SPEAKER_01: I decided that I would share some of my intimate knowledge of DC with the people that were on the bus.
SPEAKER_01: And as interested as I was in sharing, they were the exact opposite of hearing, uh, but it's their loss, is what I've I've attributed to.
SPEAKER_01: So we're on the bus back to the hotel, and and I just stand up.
SPEAKER_01: Now, having been with me for longer than about 15 minutes, Amy knows what's coming.
SPEAKER_01: She's got this sixth sense, uh-oh, this is not going well.
SPEAKER_01: And so I stand up and she kind of grabs me and says, No, no, don't do it.
SPEAKER_01: And I stand up and I say, Hey folks, if you look over to your left, that's the Washington Hilton.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the 80s, this was the exit that Ronald Reagan used when he was shot under the attempted assassination.
SPEAKER_01: On your right is the Russian consulate.
SPEAKER_01: You blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going through this, and she the whole time's pulling on my sleeve, going, They don't want to hear that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, nothing was proven better than when I got off the bus and I'm expecting applause and people throwing money in the aisle for me.
SPEAKER_01: I get off to dead silence.
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, as I'm exiting the bus, I thought the bus driver tried to trip me because I was making him look bad of not telling him.
SPEAKER_01: And so today, I don't want to risk me being the tour guide.
SPEAKER_01: Today we're going to use David as our tour guide.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you know David, a writer of many of the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible describes David as a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: He was king of Israel and certainly a key character in the God narrative.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to let David be our tour guide on this, and we're going to begin our first carpenter attribute, if you will, by looking at how God is the creator of new.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bibles, and if you don't, there's one on the row with you.
SPEAKER_01: But if you have your Bibles, turn to Psalm 104.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to read verses 1 through 10.
SPEAKER_01: Now, just a note, I'm reading today from the message, and it's the Bible in contemporary language.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think it gives a different picture, but but sometimes gives maybe uh a little um richer, fuller picture.
SPEAKER_01: And I love how easy it is to understand for me, and so that's why I read from that.
SPEAKER_01: So if it's a little bit different than your translation, that's why.
SPEAKER_01: So Psalm 104.
SPEAKER_01: O my soul, bless God.
SPEAKER_01: God, my God, how great you are, beautifully, gloriously robed, dressed up in sunshine and all heaven stretched out for your tent.
SPEAKER_01: You built your palace on the ocean deeps, made a chariot out of clouds and took off on wind wings, you commandeered winds as messengers, appointed fire and flame as ambassadors.
SPEAKER_01: You set earth on a firm foundation so that nothing could shake it ever.
SPEAKER_01: You blanketed earth with ocean, covered the mountains with deep waters, then you roared, and the water ran away.
SPEAKER_01: Your thunder crash put it to flight.
SPEAKER_01: Mountains pushed up, valleys spread out, and the places you assigned them, you set boundaries between earth and sea.
SPEAKER_01: Never again will earth be flooded.
SPEAKER_01: You started the springs and rivers, set them flowing among the hills.
SPEAKER_01: We could have used multiple uh places, multiple references in the Bible to demonstrate the the maker of new.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we could have used Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: We could, I mean, just put a finger anywhere in Psalm almost, and you hear that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh in fact, I look over uh across the page from where I am at the bottom of chapter 102, and David reminds us he laid earth's foundations a long time ago and handcrafted the very heavens.
SPEAKER_01: In Psalm, the way the message describes it, it says, God made handcrafted sky jewelry and put it on display.
SPEAKER_01: That, I believe, is the first aspect of God still being a carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: The fact that he creates new.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what's awesome about the fact that he creates new is that he does it out of nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Unlike our carpenters here, obviously we've got to have something, some raw material.
SPEAKER_01: God needs no raw material to create out of new.
SPEAKER_01: I brought some pictures to show you kind of what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: And as I read that idea of he handcrafted sky jewelry, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: Our first picture that we're gonna show, this is called a Crab Nebula.
SPEAKER_01: Now, for those that like to travel, this is fairly close.
SPEAKER_01: This is only about 6,500 light years from Earth.
SPEAKER_01: So uh it's right in the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01: This actually is found in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Megellonic Cloud.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this um this is a result of a bright supernova explosion.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what's interesting about this particular nebula.
SPEAKER_01: At the center of that, there's a star.
SPEAKER_01: That star rotates 33 times every millisecond.
SPEAKER_01: What happens is it creates so much energy that it acts almost like a lighthouse that sends out light beams and radio waves, and that's what gives it that look, uh, that kind of awesome aura about it.
SPEAKER_01: The next picture we have is another supernova explosion.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this one is uh a bit further away.
SPEAKER_01: This is 160,000 light years from Earth.
SPEAKER_01: Um this uh is taken with the Hubble telescope from NASA, and um it's amazing to me uh all that you capture in that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, remember, this is actually from an explosion, so a lot of what we're seeing was actually all one piece, maybe even one galaxy at one time, they believe, and then this explosion happened, and that's what we get.
SPEAKER_01: I can't help but think, by the way, when God said, Hey, uh Abraham, can you count the stars?
SPEAKER_01: Abraham just saw what we see.
SPEAKER_01: He did not even, I mean, God hadn't even touched this aspect yet.
SPEAKER_01: And then our third picture is uh is also taken with the Hubble telescope.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is what NASA calls, and I love this description, it's a random patch of sky.
SPEAKER_01: That's what NASA calls this.
SPEAKER_01: What NASA uh has indicated, there are the red dots that you see are the furtherest galaxies.
SPEAKER_01: The reason is the way light uh emits from these things is that it's on the far spectrum, so it shows up as red, this furtherest light.
SPEAKER_01: The bright white is actually the closer galaxies.
SPEAKER_01: Now, hear me, I'm not talking about stars.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking, this is galaxies.
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing to me uh that it was only, I think the Hubble telescope got sent in the 70s, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: We sent it out and we started getting pictures back uh later on in NASA is producing these pictures for us.
SPEAKER_01: So only fairly recently, if you think about that whole spance of time as we know it, only fairly recently are we able to see that.
SPEAKER_01: So let's drill down to Earth just a second.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you two more pictures.
SPEAKER_01: This next picture is um is taken of a fish.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this fish is called a fang-tooth fish.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure where they came up with that name, doesn't seem to be appropriate, but this this fang-toothed fish um is he lives in an average depth of about 6,500 feet below the surface.
SPEAKER_01: However, a lot of fang-tooth fish have been found at depths of 16,000 feet deep in the ocean.
SPEAKER_01: The amount of pressure that is at that depth and the amount of uh well, the amount of temperature, if you will, the lack thereof, no light, I mean it is icy depths at that thing.
SPEAKER_01: And this and this fish has found to thrive.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the the final picture I have for you is actually one that I think is is kind of an exquisite creature.
SPEAKER_01: This is called a vampire squid.
SPEAKER_01: This vampire squid uh lives in lightless ocean and thrives in depths of about 10,000 feet of water.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the point.
SPEAKER_01: I think it was only in the 1960s that we started to develop the technology that allowed us this kind of deep sea exploration.
SPEAKER_01: And so the question is: what kind of carpenter builds these kinds of creations both on earth and in the sky, and then hides it for eons for us to discover later?
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of carpenter God is, I believe, and that's why I believe He is a creator of new, a very creative carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say that if we want to bring it down to where we live, we've all experienced that miracle of new, that miracle of new birth.
SPEAKER_01: All of us, by being here, of course, are have been born.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a parent, you know that exciting miracle that that is.
SPEAKER_01: But but here's the thing that I think happens to us sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: We see that pretty often.
SPEAKER_01: Babies are born all the time, every day, and I think we get a little bit desensitized to the fact that God is still in the miracle business related to the miracle of new life.
SPEAKER_01: Just a sidebar, what we call in Louisiana land yap, just a little something extra here.
SPEAKER_01: You ever notice how God uses the unexpected to do what he wants to?
SPEAKER_01: Throughout the Old Testament, we read how he used barren women to birth nations, how he used barren women and brought to their womb national leaders.
SPEAKER_01: And certainly I think it's appropriate to point out that instead of using a conquering king from the empire of Rome in that day, God uses a Jewish boy that gets trained to be a carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: And so that creative carpentry, I think, is certainly an attribute of God's character.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's continue the tour.
SPEAKER_01: Turn just a few chapters to the left, if you will, over to Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_01: Now, while you're turning there, let me set this up for you.
SPEAKER_01: So uh David is king of Israel uh when this was written.
SPEAKER_01: David goes out, many of you know the story.
SPEAKER_01: He goes out on his rooftop one day and he looks over and he sees Bathsheba bathing on her rooftop.
SPEAKER_01: And David says, I think I'd like to get to know her.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and he tells some of his guys, hey, if you don't mind, would you issue an invitation to her to come over?
SPEAKER_01: That's not really what happened.
SPEAKER_01: That might be the Disney version.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how it really played out.
SPEAKER_01: Um David looks over and sees Bathsheba and decides that he wants her, and he sends his men to go get her.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in that time, if you were the king, you didn't say, I want something, and the person that you asked it of went, eh, maybe not.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be there on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, when the king said, Go get her, what that meant was they went and physically captured her and brought her back to him so David could have his way with her.
SPEAKER_01: So David is in this uh adulterous affair with Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_01: They end up, uh she gets pregnant, he David kills her husband to cover that up, and Nathan the prophet goes to David and confronts him with this horrendous sin and this horrendous uh acts that David has been committing.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's David's confession in Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_01: Let's listen to what he says, and and we'll talk about this idea of uh God's second uh characteristic as carpenter, which is he is a repairer.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 51, generous in love, God give grace, huge in mercy, wipe out my bad record, scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry.
SPEAKER_01: I know how bad I've been.
SPEAKER_01: My sins are staring me down.
SPEAKER_01: You're the one I violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
SPEAKER_01: You have all the facts before you.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you decide about me is fair.
SPEAKER_01: I've been out of step with you for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: What you're after is truth from the inside out.
SPEAKER_01: Enter me, then conceive a new true life.
SPEAKER_01: Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean.
SPEAKER_01: Scrub me and I'll have a snow white life.
SPEAKER_01: Tune me in to foot tapping songs, set those once broken bones to dancing.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look too close for blemishes, but give me a clean bill of health.
SPEAKER_01: God, make a fresh start in me.
SPEAKER_01: Shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
SPEAKER_01: Don't throw me out with the trash or fail to breathe holiness in me.
SPEAKER_01: Bring me back from my gray exile.
SPEAKER_01: Put a fresh wind in my sails.
SPEAKER_01: Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home.
SPEAKER_01: Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation, God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
SPEAKER_01: Unbutton my lips, dear God.
SPEAKER_01: I'll let loose with your praise.
SPEAKER_01: Going through the motions doesn't please you.
SPEAKER_01: A flawless performance is nothing to you.
SPEAKER_01: I learned God worship when my pride was shattered.
SPEAKER_01: Heart, shattered lives, ready for love, don't for a moment escape God's notice.
SPEAKER_01: God, being the good carpenter that he is, looks for the broken to repair.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the great thing about his ability to repair it's not just sin that he has to repair.
SPEAKER_01: God mends broken relationships.
SPEAKER_01: God is practical enough to mend broken bones.
SPEAKER_01: You heard David say that as well.
SPEAKER_01: God even heals and repairs broken hearts.
SPEAKER_01: But repairs have rewards.
SPEAKER_01: When you mend the bone the correct way, that bone is stronger.
SPEAKER_01: But when we mend relationships, typically those are better than they were before.
SPEAKER_01: A better understanding is there.
SPEAKER_01: And in the case of David and Bathsheba, so the child that she has with him during that affair dies.
SPEAKER_01: A little later, David and Bathsheba have another child.
SPEAKER_01: It's a son, and they call him Solomon.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon goes on to be the greatest, richest, smartest king that Israel has known.
SPEAKER_01: So repairs certainly have rewards.
SPEAKER_01: Now, our final stop on the carpenter tour, which I told the first service sounds like a 1970s ticket somewhere, a concert or something, the carpenter tour, but our final stop is actually my favorite, and it's one of restoration.
SPEAKER_01: It's the act of taking something and making it better.
SPEAKER_01: Like new, but repurposed.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the scars that give that character.
SPEAKER_01: You know, anytime you see a carpenter or anyone restore something, they always tend to leave those scars, those little wormholes, those little blemishes and things.
SPEAKER_01: And I think they obviously do that on purpose for the beauty that it creates, for the character that it gives, for the story that it tells.
SPEAKER_01: Also, I think that's why we have scars, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: I thought about this that, hey God, how come when you heal us, it's just not completely healed?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you say that you'll forget our sin and all this.
SPEAKER_01: How come the scars?
SPEAKER_01: I think the scars are still there, not to remind us so much of the hurt and the pain and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But it's my belief that the scars are still with us to remind us of the repairing, to remind us of what kind of God repairs us and repairs the broken and then restores us.
SPEAKER_01: It's the scars that give character and the fact that it now is not what it once was, but instead it's made better, like new, but repurposed.
SPEAKER_01: That's why restoration is one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_01: So for this final tour stop, turn a few books.
SPEAKER_01: Over to your left.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to 2 Samuel chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Samuel chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're going to continue with David, even though we're leaving Psalms, we're going to continue with David being our tour guide.
SPEAKER_01: At this point, David is now king of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: David had a great friendship with Jonathan.
SPEAKER_01: Jonathan was King Saul's son.
SPEAKER_01: Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle.
SPEAKER_01: David takes the reign of the Israel kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: But David and Jonathan were best of friends, kind of of biblical proportions almost.
SPEAKER_01: And so David is there as king, and this is what he says in 2 Samuel chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: One day David asked, Is there anyone left of Saul's family?
SPEAKER_01: If so, I'd like to show him some kindness in honor of Jonathan.
SPEAKER_01: It happened that a servant from Saul's household named Zeba was there.
SPEAKER_01: They called him into David's presence.
SPEAKER_01: The king asked him, Are you Zeba?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir, he replied.
SPEAKER_01: The king asked, Is there anyone left from the family of Saul to who I can show some godly kindness?
SPEAKER_01: Zeba told the king, Yes, there's Jonathan's son, lame in both feet.
SPEAKER_01: Well, where is he?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's living at the home of Maker, some of Miel in Lodabar.
SPEAKER_01: King David didn't lose a minute.
SPEAKER_01: He sent and got him from the house of Maker, some of Miel in Lodabar.
SPEAKER_01: When Mephiboshef, son of Jonathan, who was the son of Saul, came before David, he bowed deeply, abasing himself, honoring David.
SPEAKER_01: David spoke his name, Mephibosheph.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid, said David.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to do something special for you in memory of your father Jonathan.
SPEAKER_01: To begin with, I'm returning to you all the properties of your grandfather Saul.
SPEAKER_01: Furthermore, from now on you'll take all your meals at my table.
SPEAKER_01: Shuffling and stammering, not looking him in the eye, Mephiboshev said, Who am I that you would pay attention to a stray dog like me?
SPEAKER_01: David then called in Ziba, Saul's right hand man, and told him, Everything that belonged to Saul and his family I've handed over to your master's grandson.
SPEAKER_01: You and your sons and your servants will work his land and bring in the produce, provisions for your master's grandson.
SPEAKER_01: Mehphiboshev himself, your master's grandson, from now on, will take all his meals at my table.
SPEAKER_01: Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me stop there for just a second.
SPEAKER_01: Here's another subtlety, by the way, another wink that kind of seems like, uh, okay, so he had fifteen sons and twenty.
SPEAKER_01: What's the point?
SPEAKER_01: David has just given Mephiboshev fifteen sons and twenty servants to work, to bring in the produce, to bring in the goods.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the level that he's returned to Mephibosheth to some extent?
SPEAKER_01: Picking up in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: All that my master the king has ordered his servant, answered Zeba, your servant will surely do.
SPEAKER_01: And Mephiboshef ate at David's table, just like one of the royal family.
SPEAKER_01: Mephiboshef also had a small son named Micah.
SPEAKER_01: All who were part of Zeba's household were now the servants of Mephiboshef.
SPEAKER_01: Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, taking all his means at the king, all of his meals at the king's table, he was lame in both feet.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder as we read that, and that's one of my favorite passages.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder as we read that, how many of you need restoration?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you feel lame in both feet?
SPEAKER_01: And here's the best part about it.
SPEAKER_01: Mephiboshev didn't have to do a thing to get it.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't ask, he wasn't required to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: It was the king's idea.
SPEAKER_01: That should sound familiar to us if we read it all in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It was the king's idea to reach out and restore Mephiboshev.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, if you think about it and you think about that biblical time and how the lame were treated, Mephiboshev likely wasn't doing so well in the house he was in.
SPEAKER_01: Mephiboshev may have had to beg.
SPEAKER_01: He had probably all kind of problems related to trying to get a job and all of this.
SPEAKER_01: There weren't any desk jobs then, okay?
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't any Time magazine operators that you call or anything else.
SPEAKER_01: Mephiboshev was likely having a hard time.
SPEAKER_01: And he never probably once thought, man, if I could just get back to the king's house, that wasn't even a thought for him.
SPEAKER_01: But David says, you know what I'm doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing this restoration, not because of who you are, but because of who I am.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm restoring you because of your father.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think Jesus tells us, by the way, when he reminds us that he's still a carpenter and he's still in the restoration business.
SPEAKER_01: Tim Keller in his book Encounters with Jesus tells it to us this way.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read this exactly.
SPEAKER_01: He says, every other religion says if you want to find God, if you want to improve yourself, you have to do something.
SPEAKER_01: You have to gather your strength, you have to keep the rules, you have to free your mind, then fill your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Every other religion or human philosophy says, if you want to make the world right or make yourself right, then summon all your reasons and all your strength.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity says the exact opposite.
SPEAKER_01: It was the king who sought him out, and it was the king's idea.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the reminder of Mephiboshev, where it started out telling us he was lame in both feet and ends with the fact that he's lame in both feet, is the fact that we are never beyond restoration.
SPEAKER_01: We are never broken enough that God can't repair, and we're never scarred enough for God to repurpose us for his good.
SPEAKER_01: Now I think you would probably say, well, yeah, um we we all know about being made new.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, by the sheer fact that you're here, you're born, and so you're new.
SPEAKER_01: And I would tell you, I too know something about each of those aspects.
SPEAKER_01: Um the the fact that this didn't get me in the first service because they were not here.
SPEAKER_01: I told them, I told my parents who are here to listen to it on the iPod and save me the grief of crying in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: But uh I I know something about being made new.
SPEAKER_01: My parents tried 18 years to have me.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you that know me would say, well, wait, they were just probably trying to put it off as long as they could.
SPEAKER_01: Um but uh but but they tried 18 years.
SPEAKER_01: 18 years of trying to say, I know God has a plan for us and let's stay with that.
SPEAKER_01: 18 years of uh miscarriages and mishaps.
SPEAKER_01: And so I know a little something about being made new for a particular time.
SPEAKER_01: I also know about the aspect of being repaired.
SPEAKER_01: Um I experienced a couple of episodes of childhood sexual abuse, and through counseling and other things and a lot of prayer, I've been repaired from that, and that no longer has a negative scar for me.
SPEAKER_01: And despite my best efforts to ruin a marriage, it has certainly been restored, fully restored by the power of God and his carpentry.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I know each aspect of God being a creator of new and a repairer and a restorer.
SPEAKER_01: Some that have not experienced that or maybe didn't know to give God the credit for that, here's what I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_01: Think about this, just a few practical things that you might be thinking about.
SPEAKER_01: One, how about total knee replacement surgery?
SPEAKER_01: How about addiction recovery?
SPEAKER_01: How about uh infertility and miscarriages replaced with new life?
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, that's just a subsection of my family.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't scratch the surface of what God has done, likely in many of you in this room, and the full effects of his carpentry.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray for us, and I'm gonna ask Clyde to come up, and Clyde's gonna play, and he may sing something over you.
SPEAKER_01: As Clyde comes, let me just make you aware of this.
SPEAKER_01: While he's doing so, we give you that time to consider what was said today, maybe what the Holy Spirit said that had your name on it.
SPEAKER_01: And then after our service, some of our pastors and elders will be down front.
SPEAKER_01: If there's any way we can pray for you or answer any questions, or just visit with you, maybe just connect in a way that's meaningful to you.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be our pleasure to do so.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray for us and then you consider what was said.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you so much that even though we don't have a lot of history of Jesus' carpentry, oh, I would argue we've got a long history of carpentry.
SPEAKER_01: We've got a long history of what you've been doing to create new.
SPEAKER_01: We need to only look around and see the miracle of life.
SPEAKER_01: And God, thank you so much that you're a repairer.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, for without that, we would be broken permanently.
SPEAKER_01: If it were left up to us, we'd never choose to return to the king's table, or if we did, it would all be for the wrong motives.
SPEAKER_01: God, you're a restorer.
SPEAKER_01: You give character and you remake and you repurpose all for the betterment of how it was originally designed.
SPEAKER_01: God, I thank you for all three aspects of your character.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for all three aspects of your occupation as carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: For it's in your name, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I told you that it would be short today, and I don't lie often.
SPEAKER_01: So uh let me keep that promise.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you were a visitor, you came in and were given a worship folder.
SPEAKER_01: On the far right side, there's a tear-off portion.
SPEAKER_01: If you would complete that and drop it into one of the wooden offering boxes that are located at each of our exits, just as a record of you being with us, we certainly appreciate you being here.
SPEAKER_01: And next week, I promise uh better preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Uh also you know that if you are a member of Grand Parkway, that's where you'll do your worship through giving as well.
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet, and as is our custom, I'd like to speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll hold out your hands as if receiving a gift, all of us by being born or made new, a lot of us have been repaired, and most of us have been restored.
SPEAKER_01: Go out and live as a repaired and restored people to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.